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Sunday, January 10, 2010

'what inspires you?' continues on. running at full speed, gaining momentum and collecting pieces of everything it touches, clutched chest close. i don't have any idea how to introduce my next guest. at least not with any level of adequacy.perhaps if you were able to swing inside my ribcage as i read her words, you would understand. she is woman in a window and she comes in through the back door. perhaps that is explanation enough.(honestly, i have no idea how to convey how much love i have for this woman, living worlds away, never having met. no idea at all. i'll just let her do the talking.)

Dissecting Doves

What inspires you? I've been thinking about this, trying to understand what the real answer might be. And the true, real, indisputable answer is everything - and at the same time, it is nothingatall. It is a simultaneous opening of doors on my outside and on my inside world. When that happens, inspiration happens. There is no choice. It comes from without and rises up within me. It has wings. It is up to me, to all of us, to grab hold of it. I quite literally feel it. Feel it in my mouth. There is a stirring. I have to stop and pay attention. I have to yearn it up. It is physical work, like moving morning phlegm.

On Writing

it's happening
it's happening even now
it stirs behind my mouth
taste
not quite taste
taste
coming taste
i work it up
cluck-cluck
o'er the back of my tongue
come
i coo
come
i lie
i tell it
i will let you pass
but i know
when the dove does rise
there upon my tongue
i will
jaw-crunch it down
and break the wing
to flutter the feel
in my vein
beat beat
beat beat
it is fear it strikes
with every beat
but i do lay it out
with no grief
dove grey
pencil point of red
that spreads
upon the white horizon of the page

I like the idea that inspiration is physical work, to be yearned up, chased after, labored for. Too often I just sit there and wait for it to overtake me, or at least come sit on my lap. But it's not a lapcat, inspiration, is it? It's a tiger to be wrestled into submission.